The election unit is not necessarily the unit in which bargaining occurs The parties may decide a larger negotiating unit would be mutually beneficial. This section explores variations in bargaining-unit structures presently used for negotiating contracts Bargaining structures for negotiation often aggregate employer units either collecting numbers of small employers that operate in the same industry in a given region or lumping together various geographically separated plants or units of a single employer. Less often, unions representing employees within a single employer have coordinated bargaining